Language is a code, a collection of symbols, letters, or words with arbitrary meanings that are arranged according to the rules of syntax and are used to communicate.

The words themselves have meaning within their specific context or language community. But without a grasp of that context, “my bad” may have just sounded odd. Your familiarity with the words and phrases may have made the exercise easy for you, but it isn’t an easy exercise for everyone. The words themselves only carry meaning if you know the understood meaning and have a grasp of their context to interpret them correctly.

There are three types of rules that govern or control our use of words. You may not be aware that they exist or that they influence you, but from the moment you put a word into text or speak it, these rules govern your communications. Think of a word that is all right to use in certain situations and not in others. Why? And how do you know?

Syntactic rules govern the order of words in a sentence. In some languages, such as German, syntax or word order is strictly prescribed. English syntax, in contrast, is relatively flexible and open to style. Still, there are definite combinations of words that are correct and incorrect in English. It is equally correct to say, “Please come to the meeting in the auditorium at twelve noon on Wednesday” or, “Please come to the meeting on Wednesday at twelve noon in the auditorium.” But it would be incorrect to say, “Please to the auditorium on Wednesday in the meeting at twelve noon come.”

Semantic rules govern the meaning of words and how to interpret them. Semantics is the study of meaning in language. It considers what words mean, or are intended to mean, as opposed to their sound, spelling, grammatical function, and so on. Does a given statement refer to other statements already communicated? Is the statement true or false? Does it carry a certain intent? What does the sender or receiver need to know in order to understand its meaning? These are questions addressed by semantic rules.

Contextual rules govern meaning and word choice according to context and social custom. For example, suppose Greg is talking about his coworker, Carol, and says, “She always meets her deadlines.” This may seem like a straightforward statement that would not vary according to context or social custom. But suppose another coworker asked Greg, “How do you like working with Carol?” and, after a long pause, Greg answered, “She always meets her deadlines.” Are there factors in the context of the question or social customs that would influence the meaning of Greg’s statement?

Even when we follow these linguistic rules, miscommunication is possible, for our cultural context or community may hold different meanings for the words used than the source intended. Words attempt to represent the ideas we want to communicate, but they are sometimes limited by factors beyond our control. They often require us to negotiate their meaning, or to explain what we mean in more than one way, in order to create a common vocabulary. You may need to state a word, define it, and provide an example in order to come to an understanding with your audience about the meaning of your message.

McLean, Scott. Business Communication for Success. 1969 . Flat World Knowledge. 1 May, 2010. .

Technology can be easy to copy, and technology alone rarely offers sustainable advantage.

Firms that leverage technology for strategic positioning use technology to create competitive assets or ways of doing business that are difficult for others to copy.

True sustainable advantage comes from assets and business models that are simultaneously valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and for which there are no substitutes.

Technology can play a key role in creating and reinforcing assets for sustainable advantage by enabling an imitation resistant value chain; strengthening a firm’s brand; collecting useful data and establishing switching costs; creating a network effect; creating or enhancing a firm’s scale advantage; enabling product or service differentiation; and offering an opportunity to leverage unique distribution channels.

Patents are not necessarily a sure-fire path to exploiting an innovation. Many technologies and business methods can be copied, so managers should think about creating assets like the ones defined above if they wish to create truly sustainable advantage

Nothing lasts forever, and shifting technologies and market conditions can render once strong assets as obsolete.

It doesn’t matter if it’s easy for new firms to enter a market if these newcomers can’t create and leverage the assets needed to challenge incumbents.

Beware those who say “IT doesn’t matter” or refer to the “myth” of the first mover. This thinking is overly simplistic. It’s not a time or technology lead that provides sustainable competitive advantage; it’s what a firm does with its time and technology lead. If a firm can use a time and technology lead to create valuable assets that others cannot match, it may be able to sustain its advantage. But if the work done in this time and technology lead can be easily matched, then no advantage can be achieved, and a firm may be threatened by new entrants.

Industry competition and attractiveness can be described by considering the following five forces:

1. the intensity of rivalry among existing competitors,
2. the potential for new entrants to challenge incumbents,
3. the threat posed by substitute products or services
4. the power of buyers, and
5. the power of suppliers.

In markets where commodity products are sold, the Internet can increase buyer power by increasing price transparency.

The more differentiated and valuable an offering, the more the Internet shifts bargaining power to sellers. Highly differentiated sellers that can advertise their products to a wider customer base can demand higher prices.

A strategist must constantly refer to models that describe events impacting their industry, particularly as new technologies emerge.

The value chain can be used to map a firm’s efficiency and to benchmark it against rivals, revealing opportunities to use technology to improve processes and procedures. When these firms are resistant to imitation, a firm’s value chain may yield sustainable competitive advantage.

Firms may consider adopting packaged software or outsourcing value chain tasks that are not critical to a firm’s competitive advantage.

Firms should be wary of adopting software packages or outsourcing portions of its value chain that are proprietary and a source of competitive advantage.

Gallaugher, John. Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide To Harnessing Technology. 1969 . Flat World Knowledge. 18 Jan, 2010. .